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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alexis Powell" data-source="post: 3584343" data-attributes="member: 5327">In fact, Nikon has been using field flatteners in their best porros and roofs starting _long_ before 1998 and 2001.For example, the Nikon 7x50 ProStar (porro), 10x70 Astroluxe (porro), and 8x40 Classic Eagle (roof), all use field flatteners. They were all introduced in ~1984. Fuji has also long used field flatteners. I suspect use of flatteners may go back decades earlier, but those are the earliest models with which I have experience. My first serious birding bins were the 8x40 Classic Eagle, which to my eye were clearly superior to the Zeiss and Leica competition until introduction of phase coatings by those companies in ~1988 tipped the balance of overall optical quality to their favor. Still, I missed the big easy flat sweet spot of my Classic Eagles for many years (during which I used Zeiss 7x42 BGATP as my primary birding bin) and have only been fully optically satisfied since Swarovski put it all together in the 8.5x42 EL Swarovision. --AP</blockquote>